Summer of Riley

William lives with his mother, Dorothy. She and William’s father, Douglas, are separated. Dorothy is kind and patient with William. She is the one who comes up with the idea of getting him a dog to help him heal after his grandfather’s death, knowing that William is struggling with the loss. She sees the positive changes in William after Riley comes to live with them, so she does everything in her power to try and ensure that Riley’s life will be spared. After Riley first attacks Peachie’s horse, Dorothy understands that Riley’s behavior is problematic, but she considers getting the dog a psychiatrist to help him work through his behavioral issues rather than giving him away or returning him to the shelter. Later, she even hires a lawyer to fight for Riley and is a powerful source of emotional support for William as he processes all these challenges.

Despite Dorothy’s good intentions, she does not always give William the information he needs to come to terms with and understand his parents’ separation. She also doesn’t prepare him or inform him about her romantic relationship with Stephen, leaving William to make what assumptions he can about their relationship based on their interactions. She means well and wants to help William, but she is wary of giving him false hope when Riley’s fate is uncertain. She encourages him to see a happy future in the tea leaves, but she also tempers his expectations. Though she shares William’s hope that Riley can be saved, she is more practical and realistic.

William’s father, Douglas, is not very present in William’s life. William does not see his father very often after his parents separated. This is a source of pain for William, who feels that he has been abandoned by his father. Douglas lives in a different town and is very busy, and he does not always return William’s calls promptly—William resents him for this. Through eavesdropping on his parents’ conversations, William knows that Douglas is hiding the fact that he is engaged to a woman named Phoebe, and he has not even introduced her to William yet. The knowledge that his father keeps secrets from him makes William distrust Douglas. With regard to Riley, Douglas believes that William needs to face reality and accept that Riley is not a safe dog. This tough-love attitude does not endear him to his son, who only becomes angrier and more resentful. At the end of the novel, the relationship between Douglas and William improves slightly. Douglas proves that he is able to show up for his son at a difficult time when he drives a long way to get to the airport and support William when he has to say goodbye to Riley.

Peachie, or Mrs. Peachwood, is William and Dorothy’s neighbor. Her horse, the Sultan of Kaboor, is an old horse that Peachie absolutely adores. Riley chases the Sultan unexpectedly, and the horse sustains a minor injury. This is a very traumatic experience for both Peachie and the Sultan. William knows that the Sultan is Peachie’s only connection to her deceased husband. Although he feels bad when Riley chases the horse, he struggles to accept Peachie’s intense anger about the situation. Peachie wants Riley to be euthanized so that the same thing won’t happen again; she is especially worried because, given the Sultan’s age, the vet warns that the horse likely won’t survive another intense fright. 

Both William and Peachie are, for a while, incapable of Seeing Both Sides of an Argument because of their strong feelings about the animals in their lives. Both of them are driven and influenced by their grief—Peachie is emotionally attached to the Sultan because her deceased husband loved the horse, and William copes with the loss of his grandfather through his love for Riley. Peachie and William are similar because they need their animals to “close up the empty places inside them” (22). When William finally learns to see Peachie’s side of things, he demonstrates that he is capable of growing and maturing. Peachie also comes around, acknowledging that she holds no ill-will toward William since he just wants to protect his dog. Ultimately, she even drops her complaint against Riley as long as he is homed elsewhere. At the end of the novel, William commits to repairing their friendship and demonstrating that he is capable of fostering mutual understanding between them.

Grace is 11 years old, like William, and she is his best friend. She is intelligent and insightful, and she has a prodigious vocabulary for a child her age. Grace is a static character, which means that she does not undergo any meaningful character development through the novel. She is more mature and level-headed than William even at the beginning of the novel. Grace and William have a strong relationship, and Grace is not afraid to tell William exactly how she feels, even when she disagrees with him. She is much more capable of Seeing Both Sides of an Argument than William is, noting early on that while she cares about William and Riley, she also cares about Peachie and the Sultan. Even though she is angry with Riley for hurting the Sultan, Grace does not hesitate to help William with his campaign to save his dog’s life. She is a loyal friend to William even if she does not always agree with his point of view. She is also able to be humble and apologize when she has done something wrong or hurt William’s feelings. Grace demonstrates a deeper level of maturity than William, providing a counterpoint to his initial immaturity and self-centeredness.

Ellis Porter is a 12-year-old boy who bullies William and Grace and enjoys teasing William about his devotion to Riley. While Ellis starts off as an outright antagonist to William, he gradually becomes a more sympathetic character. He has a vendetta against all dogs, and he wants Riley to be euthanized because he believes all dogs are dangerous. Three unleashed dogs killed Ellis’s cat, so he feels that Riley’s death is justified and might help make up for that tragedy in his life. William has little sympathy for Ellis, even though he knows how painful it is to lose an animal he loves. William and Ellis are both incapable of Seeing Both Sides of an Argument in their early interactions. Ellis pretends to fight on behalf of Peachie and the Sultan, but he does not actually care about the horse. He only wants Riley to die, and he hopes that the situation will cause William to suffer. 

Ellis develops as a character when he reveals that he is actually terrified of dogs because a dog attacked him when he was only three years old. Also, he confides in William that he failed to save his cat from the dogs because he was afraid to step in and stop the attack, and the incident has left him haunted by guilt and grief. Despite Ellis sharing this information with William in a vulnerable moment, the two boys do not reconcile their differences. In fact, William chooses to use Ellis’s trauma against him to hurt him further, showing his own lack of maturity. Although William’s mother points out that Ellis told William about his traumatic dog attack because he was “trying to explain himself to [William]” (159), the two boys do not successfully connect or empathize with one another.